Random Ramblings from Mom about biking, kids, and food, with the occasional sprinkling of science fiction references. It's all good!

It’s That Time of Year part 5

November 13, 2014

by Erin B

A long, LONG time ago, I bought a vintage wooden school desk at a garage sale for about $5. It had been coloured by the previous child who used it. I very carefully took it all the way a part and packaged up all the hardware. I sanded the wood and primed it and then the weekend ended and I packed it away. In pieces.

Little Girl was barely Toddler Girl back then and the desk was humourously too large for her. I wasn’t in a rush. It wasn’t something i could work on while taking care of her at home when it was just the two of us and it wasn’t pressing enough to make other child care arrangements for me to work on it.

Little girl is suddenly too big for the little antique table and chair that were vintage and second hand when MY mom got them as a child. So they went down to my sewing room and I spent last week finishing painting and rebuilding the desk. It turned out well.

No before pictures I’m afraid.

But in order to get it into her room, we had to do a major purge of the crap stuff she is hoarding has in her room. That took fours hours and some serious negotiation on Saturday. We ended up with one bag of garbage, one of donation stuff and a big box of “treasures” that we off loaded shared with the mommies from the local mommies group.

Yes, it would have been MUCH faster to just do it while she was at school, but I am not tossing/donating/rehoming her things with out her permission. Which meant that every scrap of paper, every broken “free” from the grocery store/dentist/who-ever gives-out-this-stuff-to-keep-kids-quite toy, every crayon we have ever gotten at a restaurant and brought home despite them not colouring very well was a negotiation. And then we vacuumed.

We are both really happy with the out come. I just which I could find the butterfly rug that we had in her “library” under her bed. My knees are getting to old to climb under there to read books to her without the carpet to soften the floor a little.